The whistling frogs that you hear at night give
birth to live young,
not tadpoles as with normal frogs.

It was the only holiday destination in the world
with a scheduled
Concord service – up to four flights a week in the
winter
season

The furry little creatures that run out in
front of your hire car as you travel the country roads of Barbados are mongooses.

Originally
they were brought to the island from India to control the rat population
in the cane fields.

Being nocturnal, the rats never came into contact with the mongooses –
instead they demolished the snake population who actually did eat the
rats.

It is well known that the Mongoose in Barbados never crosses the road
unless someone is watching.

Did you also know that BARBADOS.......

Has always flown only the British Flag, until achieving it's
independence in 1966.

Has never been successfully invaded by a Foreign power.

When first settled in 1625, was found to be almost totally covered in
dense jungle, with a very large population of wild pigs.

First and second Governors, Captain William Deane, and John Powell,
respectively, were each arrested during their terms as Governor, and
returned to England in irons.

Has experienced 12 Hurricanes and 15 Gales of sufficient force to cause
extensive damage, recorded from Settlement in 1625 until now.

Has a 98% literacy rate, a sign of the island's
sophistication.

The first settlement in Barbados, Holetown, was originally named
Jamestown, after it's benefactor, King James I of England. It acquired the
name "Holetown" due to the off loading and cleaning of ships in the very
small channel located within the immediate vicinity of the town. These
tasks left the area in an untidy and smelly condition....thus the
Jamestown area became referred to as "the Hole", which evolved into "Holetown",
as it known today. (This channel is no longer in use for such purposes).

Commander-in-Chief from 21 December 1629 to 16 July 1630, Sir William
Tufton, was executed by firing squad in May 1632, for high treason.

One of the Judges in Sir William Tufton's case, Captain William
Kitterich, was executed by firing squad for the murder of a Captain
William Birch.

The Capital city, Bridgetown was originally named "Indian Bridge" for
the rude bridge which had been constructed over the river (now known as
the Careenage) by the Indians. It was later called the "town of St.
Michael" in official documents, before finally being named Bridgetown when
a new bridge was built in place of the Indian Bridge, sometime after 1654.

Most of what is now the Southern part of Bridgetown (the lower Bay
Street environs) was once a huge swamp.

The House of Assembly, in 1666, by special Act, ordered that all buildings
under construction of wood be halted, and that all buildings in
Bridgetown, including homes, must be built of stone, due to the fire which
totally destroyed Bridgetown in that year. The Capital has since been
devastated by fire several times.

The first slaves in Barbados were white (called Indentured Servants);
people who, for various reasons, had been deemed enemies of the Crown.
This practice was so prevalent during the period 1640 to 1650, that a
phrase for punishment was coined "to be Barbadoed".

It was written of the great Hurricane of 16 October 1780 "Whites and
Blacks together, it is imagined (the deaths) to exceed some thousands, but
fortunately few people of consequence were among the number".

In 1736 boasted 22 Forts and 26 Batteries, mounting a total of 463
Cannon, along it's 21 miles of Western shoreline.

During the terrible landslip of 11 October 1786, a home in the area of
Walcotts Plantation, in that part of the Parish of St. Joseph called
Crab-Hole, in which a Christening was to take place, sank entirely
underground. "The next morning no vestige of it was to be seen. Some time
afterwards, it was discovered through a fissure in the soil, which was
enlarged, an opening made in the roof, and to the great astonishment of
the persons who descended into it, the internal arrangements were found in
the same order as before the accident took place; even the christening
Cake was found unimpaired in appearance and taste."

During this same landslip of 1786, several buildings on the Walcott
estate were swallowed up, including the windmill, "which was carried some
hundred yards from it's original location and swallowed up, no part
remaining visible but the extremity of the upper arm".

Foster Hall Plantation suffered precisely the same fate during the
landslip of 1819, during which time the woods under Hackelton's Cliff slid
down in it's entirety to cover the area where the Fosterhall buildings had
previously stood.

The Lord Nelson Statue, erected on Bridgetown's Trafalgar Square on 22
Mar 1813, is older than the statue and square of the same name and fame in
London. Trafalgar Square was renamed National Heroes Square in April 1999,
in honour of the national heroes of Barbados.

During the period 1841 - 1845, Barbados was considered the healthiest
place in the world to live, having 1 death per 66 people, compared to
world averages of approximately 1 death per 35 people.

People, in times past, travelled from all over the world to Barbados
for it's Healing Qualities. These were to be immersed totally, with the
exception of the head, in the sands of the beaches of Cattlewash in St.
Andrew. This treatment was believed to cure many ills. This practice
lasted for some years before waning.

South Carolina, in the USA, was originally settled by Barbadians, and
it's first Governor was a Barbadian

Bill Clinton is not the first American President to visit Barbados.
President Reagan also visited here and George Washington stayed here
for six weeks, visiting in 1751 to accompany his
half-brother Lawrence who had made the six week voyage from the Potomac
for health reasons. Nineteen at the time, it was Washington's only trip
abroad. "Hired from Captain Crofton his house for fifteen pounds
($75.00) a month exclusive of liquors and washing which we are to provide",
wrote Washington in his diary shortly after landing on the island, adding:
"We stand a mile from town and the view is extensive by land and
pleasant by sea as we command the view of Carlisle Bay and all the
shipping and such manner that none can come or go without being open to
our view".

The house still stands and can be found on the side of the historic
Garrison Savannah which was formerly the parade ground for West Indies
Regiments stationed here in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today it has been
converted into offices but is easily identified by the ruin of the
Coralstone sugar windmill in the parking lot.

Did Washington enjoy his visit to Barbados? His words say it all .... "In the cool of the evening we rode in the country and were
perfectly enraptured with the beautiful scenery which every side
presented our view. The fields of cane, corn, fruit trees in a
delightful green.."

The American Declaration of Independence has a familiar ring to
Barbadians as it is a direct crib of the Barbadian Declaration of
Independence drafted 150 years earlier when the island tried to gain its
own Independence (they had to wait until 1966 for this to happen). Much
discussion took place between the founding fathers and Barbadians over
this matter. How did they know about it? One reason might have been
because one of the signatories was a Bajan, as was the printer.